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Catharsis Goes Hand-in-Hand with Meditation

In a recent Hindustan Times article, Indian actress Prajakta Mali, an ardent follower of Osho, talks about how she has been deeply inspired his philosophy and his talks, and has used meditation and pranayam to get over professional and personal turmoil.

“We actors have an exciting yet stressful life. We undergo a process where we emote unnaturally. The emotions portrayed for a role are real but they are not what I am going through. This excessive expressiveness taxes us physically and mentally. In such cases, a meditation technique or pranayam is very important. It helps us deal with all the negativity, competition and insecurities of the profession.” says Prajakta.

Catharsis goes hand-in-hand with meditation, and cathartic meditation can be very useful for professionals today as a way of bringing them back to themselves.

“A catharsis is needed because your heart is so suppressed, due to your brain. Your brain has taken over so much of your being that it dominates you. There is no place for the heart, so the longings of the heart are suppressed.”

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Today’s mind is in chaos

“Today’s mind is not fixed; it is in chaos. So all the old methods which were meant for fixed minds are out of date. For the chaotic mind, a chaotic method is needed; only then can you be led into deeper realms; otherwise, the results are bound to be shallow. Once you settle into a technique you become bored with it and if you go on prolonging your practice, it will be suicidal. Don’t continue to practice a technique that is not helping you. The method is for you, not you for the method. If something is not working for you, change it.”

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“That’s why I use this chaotic method, with a cathartic technique – to push the consciousness to its roots – because only from the roots is transformation possible. Otherwise you will only verbalize and go on verbalizing, and there will be no transformation and no change. Even if you know the right things you will not be transformed, because it is not enough to know right things. One has to go to the roots, and one has to change and transform the roots. Otherwise you will not change.

“And sometimes a person is in even more difficulty when he knows the right things and cannot do anything. A new impatience, a new tension arises – he becomes doubly tense. He understands and he cannot do. Understanding can only be meaningful when you understand from the navel. Otherwise it is never meaningful. If you understand from the brain, then it is not transforming.

“The ultimate, the original, the inner, cannot be known from brain work, because you are in contact with the ultimate from your roots, from where you have come.

“Your whole problem is having moved away from the navel. You have come from the navel and you will die through it; you have come from that gate and you will pass through that gate. One has to come to that gate, and when you come to the roots there is no difficulty to change. The change is simple, but coming to the roots is difficult and arduous.

New methods are needed

“Traditional methods are there, they have an appeal because they are so old and ancient – so much tradition with them, so many people have achieved through them. That gives them credit. You can deny traditional methods, but you cannot deny Buddha buddhahood. You cannot deny Patanjali his freedom, you cannot deny Krishna his knowledge. Traditional methods have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha or to Mahavira or to Krishna. They were meaningful, they were used, they were helpful. Now Buddha cannot be denied his buddhahood, but the method is meaningless now. The method has appeal because Buddha cannot be denied – ‘A Buddha achieved through it, why can’t we?’ We could have, in a very different situation – altogether different.

“The whole mind-sphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. So the traditionalist, the conformist will say, ‘Buddha could achieve through this method or that method; why can’t we achieve? The method is correct.’ The fallacy lies not in the method, not in Buddha, but in this traditional mind. It is not seeing that the whole situation has changed, and every method is organic to a particular situation, and to a particular mind, and to a particular man.”